Story+1988-03-23+Atlanta,+GA

“Are you Southern belles ready for a date? (crowd cheers)…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Tunnel of Love”**

“This is a song about, uh…the stranger in the house…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Two Faces”**

“Man, the weather’s great down here (crowd cheers) you get this kind of weather, you know, you like to go out and take a walk…all the girls are out on the street, they’ve (crowd cheers) left their winter clothes home, you know…I like to take a little walk in the park move down Peachtree Street there (crowd cheers)…let’s see who’s out and around here…hey! hey, man!...how you doing? alright, good to see you (crowd cheers) oh, I don’t know, just been busy, you know, haven’t seen you in a while, you look good, that’s a nice suit (chuckles) what’ve you been doing?...yeah, you’re married – for how long?...six years, you’ve been married for six years and, uh, oh-oh…we got a little Big Man here now (crowd cheers) little pictures, everybody’s got their baby pictures in the band…getting ready for an E Street Band Volume Two in about fifteen years or so (crowd cheers) look out!...it’s gonna be made up mostly of women (chuckles)(crowd cheers) oh, he looks good, he looks good…man, we used to sit on this bench in 1975 after “Born to Run” came out (crowd cheers) we thought we were hot shit then, man, I tell you! (laughs) we, we’d sit with our albums and there was this big office building on the corner…the girls used to come out right around 4.30 and me and Clarence would sit there, we’d bring a little, a couple of sandwiches, you know, a few beers in a little bag…they used to come out right about this time, you know… hey, here they come, here they come…check this one in, uh…the blonde in the red, in the red shoes, here she comes – you look good, you look good, you look good, yeah…(chuckles) Miss, Miss, come back! (chuckles) can’t do that…remember what it feels like the first time like…that you see somebody that, you know, gets to you? when she comes walking in that room, she’s got something about her…you’re fixing yourself all up, you know…back in Jersey it feels kind of, kind of like this (crowd cheers) come on, Ritchie, go, man (the horn players start harmonizing) trying to decide whether to ask her out or not or to play it cool…I don’t know…I gotta get going home now, man…I gotta be home right on time for dinner now…and I gotta be in bed by 11.30 – you wouldn’t believe it…see you later, man (crowd cheers)…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “All That Heaven Will Allow”**

“On our last tour of the States we were down in Texas…there was a lot of folks down there out of Pittsburgh…(?) Ohio…the Northeast, going down there looking for work in the oil fields…when they got down there, there wasn’t any jobs…they were out of money, no place to go, no home…sleeping in tents on the side of the road, sleeping in their cars at night…with no place to call their own…this is called “Seeds”…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Seeds”**

“This is a song I wrote about eight years ago…the times kind of caught up with it…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Roulette”**

“How you doing out there tonight, huh? (crowd cheers) how are you guys back there? (crowd cheers) catch you in my rearview mirror…(crowd cheers)…this is, uh…a song, I guess, that tries to deal with the past…I’ve spent a lot of my life and my time writing about the past, going back, trying to understand what happened to me…even when I was a little boy…and uh, I guess I’ve taken a lot of comfort in it from time to time and I’ve learned a lot from it…but it’s uh…well, you can overdo it (chuckles) it’s a dangerous thing, the past is something that binds us all together in memory and it’s also something that holds you down and holds you back…keeps you from taking that step out into the new day…if you hold on to old dreams too much…eventually they stop working for you and the world just breaks your heart over and over again…this is a song about a woman trying to, trying to rid herself of her old dreams… trying to find a new dream, trying to understand the value of her own individual existence and the value of the life of her child…it seems like no matter where we go, the value of our own lives and of our time here on Earth seems to slip in and out on us…so this is a woman struggling…struggling…to understand how the world can be filled with so much sadness and so much beauty at the same time and how to learn how to live with it…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Spare Parts”**

“Here’s a song about a…oh, window shopper…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “You Can Look”**

“Now, wait a minute…I feel paralyzed…(intro music starts)…are you with me out there tonight? (crowd cheers) good!...are you alive out there tonight? (crowd cheers) do you feel the spirit out there tonight? (crowd cheers) that’s good…because what I wanna know is …are there any brave men out there tonight? (crowd cheers) are there any macho men out there tonight? (crowd cheers) because I’ve seen men that could swim rivers…that could climb mountains… that could wrestle with a grizzly bear…but there was one thing they was afraid of…there was one thing that scared them to death…you wanna know what that one thing was?...I’m gonna tell you – it was L-U-V, I’m talking about love…love, love scared them to death… now, do we have any heroic, young women out there tonight? (crowd cheers) are there any brave girls out there tonight? (crowd cheers) that’s good because I’m talking to you too…I’ve known women…women that would wrestle alligators…canoe down the Amazon, messing with the crocodiles and crawling king snakes…but there was one thing they was afraid of, they was afraid of love… when they got near love, they went running home to their mommies…now, I’m down here tonight because I got a confession to make…I wanna say that I have sinned! (crowd cheers) and I don’t need no Jimmy Swaggert, I don’t need no Jim Baker, I don’t need no Pat Robertson to forgive me – them boys can kiss my ass, baby (crowd cheers) what I wanna say is I don’t care who you bring down here, bring down Hulk Hogan – I’ll take him on – bring down Andre the Giant – I’ll take him on – bring down George “The Animal” Steele – I’ll take him on – I’m not afraid of those things… but what I’ve got to confess is…I’m a coward…when it comes to love (crowd cheers)…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “I’m a Coward”**

“I was watching this TV-movie the other night, they were prosecuting some guy for, uh…uh…well, let me tell you about it…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Part Man Part Monkey”**

“Sometimes I feel…I get feeling so lonely…and I get so far, far away down…so far, far away…that’s when I know I need a little help (crowd cheers) somebody to remind me that I’m a member of the human race…that’s when I wanna say “Hey, come on, baby”…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, towards the end of “Dancing in the Dark”**

“On the piano, Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) on the drums, the Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) on the guitar and vocals, Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) on the guitar, the great Nils Lofgren (crowd cheers) on the bass, Mr. Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) on the organ, Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers)(?) Eddie “Kingfish” Manion on the baritone, Ritchie “La Bamba,” Mark the Love Man, Mike, Mario Cruz – the Tunnel of Love horns (crowd cheers) and last…but not least (crowd cheers) do I have to say his name? (crowd cheers) do I have to say his name? (crowd cheers) do I have to say his name? (crowd cheers) Clarence “Big Man” Clemons on the saxophone (crowd cheers)…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, middle of “Light of Day”**

“Oh…wanna tell you…it’s nice to, uh…on the last tour and this tour too I’d come on stage and I’d see people of a lot of different ages out there, I’d see people, I guess, that I saw ten years ago (crowd cheers) at the Fox or something (crowd cheers) now they’re here and they’ve got their little kids on their shoulders (chuckles) those little babies…I guess this next song is a song that’s kind of…when I wrote it, I guess it’s kind of strung a line of continuity through my life, I wrote it when I was 24 (crowd cheers) and I was thinking “Here I come, world” (chuckles)(crowd cheers) I think (chuckles)… but when I wrote it, I guess I felt I was writing about a guy and a girl who wanted to run and keep on running (crowd cheers) in search…I guess in search of some sort of individual freedom…and as I got older and as I sang the song through the years, I realised that…that what they were really doing was they were out there searching for something better, searching for someplace…that they could call “home,” which I guess we’re all doing…and searching for someplace where the freedom that they found…could be put into action and could mean something in their lives and in the lives of their neighbors and their children and their friends…and without that connection that freedom was, their personal freedom was meaningless…and I also realised that the home that they were looking for wasn’t really out there but that it was buried deep inside of me and it’s buried deep inside you (crowd cheers) and I guess we all gotta fight and struggle to get to it and to hold on to it together (crowd cheers) anyway, this song has, uh, has kept me good company on my search, I hope it’s kept you good company on yours (crowd cheers) maybe it’ll even keep that little guy coming back here someday (chuckles) I hope so (chuckles) I’d like to do this and dedicate it to you tonight (crowd cheers)…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Born to Run”**

“Good luck!...”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Hungry Heart”**

“This is for all you old suckers out there (crowd cheers)…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Glory Days”**

“I’d like just to take a minute and thank everybody for coming to the shows down here in Atlanta, GA (crowd cheers) thank you (crowd cheers) and I’d like to do this one for you, uh, and your baby, wishing you, uh…safe passage through that tunnel of love…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Love Me Tender”**

“That’s not the end of the story…they drove down the highway, they came to a little bar, they went in, they ordered a couple of beers, there was a little rock’n’roll band on the bandstand and the leader said “One, two, three, four!”...”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Detroit Medley” (following “Rosalita”)**

“I know you’re probably thinking “The band must be tired up there” …you’re probably thinking…”He’s about to quit on us now,” alright (crowd cheers) but I think I’m just about getting my second wind (crowd cheers) and I’ve got a question I wanna ask you…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Sweet Soul Music”**

“(crowd cheers) We’re gonna have to rock you till the midnight hour (crowd cheers) and I just want you to raise your hand (crowd cheers)… (…) Before I go, there’s one thing I got to know…is there something you need? (crowd cheers) is there something you want? (crowd cheers) is there something you’ve got to have? (crowd cheers) then just raise your hand…”
 * 23.03.88 Atlanta, GA, intro to “Raise Your Hand”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//